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PRO-IP and PIRATE Acts Fused Into New Bill
Posted by
Soulskill
on Sat Jul 26, 2008 07:19 AM
from the when-legislation-attacks dept.
from the when-legislation-attacks dept.
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) have just sponsored a new bill, the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008, which would combine the worst parts of the PRO-IP Act and the PIRATE Act. The basic idea is pretty simple: expand the Federal government to create something like the Department of Homeland Security for IP. The Copyright Czar then polices the internet and clogs the courts with thousands of civil lawsuits against individual infringers so the RIAA doesn't have to. Feel free to contact your representatives with your feelings about this bill. Right now, they believe the bill (PDF) will 'protect jobs.'"
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[+]
News: U.S. to Get New IP Czar 320 comments
tetraminoe writes "Reuters is reporting that Congress's latest spending bill provides for the creation of a federal copyright enforcement czar. According to the article, 'Under the program, the president can appoint a copyright law enforcement officer whose job is to coordinate law enforcement efforts aimed at stopping international copyright infringement and to oversee a federal umbrella agency responsible for administering intellectual property law.' It also gives $2 million to the National Intellectual Property Law Enforcement Coordination Council (NIPLAC), created in the '90s and never funded. NIPLAC will work to protect American IP overseas and oversee enforcement."
[+]
Congress Creates Copyright Cops 533 comments
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Not satisfied with pitiful potential penalties of $150,000 for infringing upon a $0.99 song, Congress is proposing new copyright cops in the "'PRO IP' Act of 2007, specifically the creation of the Office of the United States Intellectual Property Enforcement Representative (USIPER). They also feel that the authorities need the authority to seize any computers used for infringement and to send copyright cops abroad to help other countries enforce US laws. MPAA boss Dan Glickman praised the bill saying that, 'films left costs foreign and domestic distributors, retailers and others $18 billion a year,' though Ars points out that it allegedly costs the studios only $6 billion."
Submission: PRO-IP & PIRATE Act Fused into EIPRA by Anonymous Coward
[+]
US Senate Passes PRO-IP Act 212 comments
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The Senate has passed the PRO-IP Act. While they stripped out the provision to have the DoJ act as copyright cops, it still contains increased penalties for infringement, civil forfeiture provisions, and creates an 'IP czar' to coordinate enforcement. Even though the civil forfeiture provisions are ostensibly intended for use against commercial piracy outfits, history indicates that they will probably get used against individuals at some point. Worse, because they left out the only part of the bill that Bush threatened to veto, it is expected to pass. It is going back to the House where they're expected to pass it on Saturday, after which the President will probably sign it. So, if you want to contact your representative, hurry."
An anonymous reader notes that DefectiveByDesign.Org is mobilizing to fight this legislation. The Senate vote was unanimous. We've been following the progress of this bill for quite some time.
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Protect jobs? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ermm.....more likely "will protect the stream of political contributions and lobbying money from the RIAA/MPAA/etc."
Re:Protect jobs? (Score:5, Funny)
Yep, protect jobs. Time to become a copyright lawyer...
Parent
Re:Protect jobs? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, protect jobs. Time to become a copyright lawyer...
Or a Jail Warden..
It's gonna be shitty to be an artist though ..
Parent
Re:Protect jobs? (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder what you mean by "shitty to be an artist"? All of this IP madness is predicated on middle men looking for the next best thing to distribute that will maximize return on investment. The reason they were even able to weasel into that spot they're in is because their artistic "victims" have based their decisions on wishes to become rich and famous.
The fact is that, particularly with music and movies since they have such high exposure these days, what is under contention is only the tip of the iceberg for consumable art/IP that is available. With the internet as a distribution center, this legal wrangling really is irrelevant to contemporary artists.
For any artist interested in simply exposing their talents (or lack thereof), this is quite an exciting time. If anything, this has opened people's eyes to the leaky shark tank that is the true nature of Big Media, and the fact that they don't HAVE to dive into it. Business people can do a lot of things to generate revenue, but they are really bad at being creative-- today's artists are slowly realizing that the power in any business relationship is (or can be) theirs in the end.
Parent
Re:publicity good, piracy bad (Score:4, Interesting)
And yet you still put the address of your site in your signature. There seems to be a logical disconnect between that action and what you just said. Please explain ?
Parent
Re:publicity good, piracy bad (Score:4, Interesting)
You're the creator of Democracy 2 right?
I'm not sure how you feel about this, but this is my personal experience with piracy and your game.
I heard about Democracy, checked out the site, thought it looked pretty cool and headed over to The Pirate Bay were there about a dozen torrents. Soon enough I got over the game and then Democracy 2 came out, which is a A LOT better, and once again headed over to The Pirate Bay to play it. I liked I so much that I decided to buy it. Which I did, yesterday. I figured "Well this is one guy making a really fun and interesting game, he gets all the money and it's only $20! So now I'm enjoying it legally, you've got your money and everyone is happy. Thanks to The Pirate Bay.
Parent
Stop lying. (Score:4, Insightful)
and allows widespread theft of our #1 economic output.
this is bull.
If you lumped the entire movie and music industry together, google could buy it up with the rounding errors in their revenue calculations.
The truth is that consumer electronics and technology in general dwarf hollywood and IP in the GDP calculations. Think about it for a second. How much do you pay for cellphones, mobile broadband, home broadband, computers, etc vs hollywood trash?
Even in my uncle's household, where they receive more than they could possibly spend, their expenditures on technology outpace intellectual property 4 to 1. And no, he doesn't download anything because he doesn't know how.
Parent
Re:Protect jobs? (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, I believe the only way to break this law is to make it impossible for the government to prosecute. Everyone should just become basement "artists" and publish IP on the web. Put blogs up, and then force the government to prosecute Google, Yahoo, MSN search, for indexing your blog. Use automation to file copyright complaints in the millions against every index on the web. Overburden the courts with so many fake lawsuits that the government has no choice but to back down.
Our legislators have proven that they're bought and paid for by the lobbyists. It's past the point of them representing the people.
It's time for civil disobedience, and I think they'll find that there is no such thing as enforceable IP on the web.
Parent
Re:Protect jobs? (Score:5, Interesting)
the theory goes that if intellectual property can be protected totally, then money will be made in large amounts.
What it actually means is that as soon as profits are assured by this sort of action we will see distribution channels becoming more powerful, taking a bigger cut, and IP owners getting a smaller piece of the pie.
Not that it would work, no government that criminalises millions of its own citizens has done well in the long term.
Parent
Re:Protect jobs? (Score:4, Interesting)
How many people are in prison for nonviolent drugs offences, "crimes" that wouldn't even be illegal in a free country? You can criminalise millions of people as long as the majority has a reason to look down on them; you can prohibit anything that the majority doesn't do (or won't admit to doing).
We can expect the War on Pirates to be the same runaway success as the War on Drugs. I think they will probably eventually succeed in forcing piracy off the public Internet, just as they forced drug dealers into the back streets. The pirating will, of course, continue by sneakernet.
Parent
Re:Protect jobs? (Score:5, Interesting)
in this case the criminalised group would be predominantly middle class, since that is the social group with the highest percentage of internet access.
No-one cares if you criminalise lower class/unemployed/homeless/poor people. Really, they don't. Its amazing how little people with even a little success care about people less well off then them. It sounds cynical, but I'm only being honest. How many friends do you have that aren't in or above your social class?
Criminalise people who are successful, have nice houses, jobs, and are otherwise highly respectable, and you have a potential storm on your hands.
Parent
Re:Protect jobs? - They are right (Score:4, Insightful)
It will "protect 'jobs'". Put that last little word through your Noam Chomsky filter [youtube.com], and it translates:
"protect profits".
but that does not envoke the same emotion in the masses as "Jobs" do.
Which your congress spokesperson might have a hard time trying to disagree with this bill.
Parent
Re:Protect jobs? (Score:5, Insightful)
How many friends do you have that aren't in or above your social class?
Ok, so you only have friends at or above your social class. Explain your friends then, or do that not count as actual people?
They have friends below their social class, so either their slumming it cause they feel bad about you, or they, like many more americans than you care to admit are different than you, don't see social class as noteworthy.
Parent
Re:Protect jobs? (Score:5, Insightful)
Way to use a stereotype as an argument. -fail #1
No, we just recognize better than most that "intellectual property" is not property at all. Property exists because of limited resources. I can't magically create a new house/car/yard for my friend just because I have one. Therefore, it can only belong to one party. Knowledge or "intellectual property" can be copied at will. So, trying to restrict it is putting a monopoly where there is none.
Like you...
Parent
Re:Protect jobs? (Score:4, Informative)
A fair amount of our modern idea of property comes from the philosopher John Locke and his Second Treatise on Government. [wikipedia.org] Basically it is a person's labor and efforts that improve upon a common resource that creates and justifies property. ie: The fish in the ocean belong to everyone, until a fisherman catches one, then that fish belongs to him because is efforts in catching it made it useful. What modern IP law is failing to address is Locke's theory of Spoilage. "As much as any one can make use of to any advantage of life before it spoils; so much he may by his labour fix a Property in. Whatever is beyond this, is more than his share, and belongs to others. (II, 31)" [everything2.com] Now with the internet, the supply of a song or movie is effectively unlimited, the real question is: How long before a song or movie spoils? Most movies and songs have a short short shelf life, a year at most for songs and maybe two for movies after that their sale number have dropped into irrelevancy. The biggest problem for IP isn't control or piracy, it's the ridiculous amount of time that passes before it becomes Public Domain.
Parent
Re:Protect jobs? (Score:5, Insightful)
the theory goes that if intellectual property can be protected totally, then money will be made in large amounts.
Of course, as intellectual 'property' usually doesn't involve actually making money (unless you're the mint), it's more appropriate to say that protecting intellectual 'property' means more money will be transferred to corporate accounts.
As that money would otherwise have been spent on other things in the economy, it's most likely that the transfer of money into highly wasteful monopolistic corporations result in a net loss of jobs for the economy (not to mention a net loss of wealth for the economy as a whole).
Parent
Re:Protect jobs? (Score:5, Insightful)
The rights of artists to their works came way before the rights of others to trample them.
The "rights" of artists to their works came in the last few centuries. The right to share other people's stories came when Ugh first told a story about how he tackled a dinosaur.
I guess this is the sometimes slow process of revisionism taking place, ready to wipe out any memory of all the positive effects of copyrights.
To be fair, the *AA + gov is making it difficult to remember the positive side of copyright.
Parent
Re:Protect jobs? (Score:5, Informative)
The rights of artists to their works came way before the rights of others to trample them.
Copyright has never been about the rights of artists. Since the seventeenth century stationers guild it's been about the right to profit by exploiting the artists and the crowns need to censor and control publication.
Had protecting the rights of authors and artists actually mattered, rather than being used as a thinly disguised excuse to fool the gullible, intellectual 'property' would have been concerned with funneling resources to the actual artists and creators rather than securing monopolies for the holders of the rights.
all the positive effects of copyrights.
There are no positive effects of copyrights. As a whole they damage creativity, slow down creative derivative works, hamper incremental improvement and skew the distribution channels towards creative poverty. More talent and works are marginalized than are aided, helped and spread through the current regime.
Don't get me wrong, there _could_ be positive effects of a system funneling money towards the creators of works and creating a financial incentive for creative work. But intellectual monopoly rights aren't that, nor have they been, nor are they going to be.
Parent
Re:Protect jobs? (Score:5, Insightful)
This statement perfectly illustrates the problem we have here: the two sides of the debate are arguing from incompatible assumptions. Right there, you just implicitly assumed that this concept of "IP" exists and was valid. However, people like me disagree on that very point! Therefore, everything you say based on that is useless.
The fundamental question we have to answer here is "does authorship of a work create a property right?" John Locke says yes [wikipedia.org]. Thomas Jefferson says no [kuro5hin.org]. But Jefferson wrote the Constitution, so he wins. QED.
Parent
Re:Protect jobs? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, they don't. What part of "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts" (which is, very clearly and distinctly, not like "to give an entitlement to artists") do you not understand?
The sole legitimate purpose of copyright is to maximize the number of works entering the Public Domain. Nothing more, nothing less!
Parent
Re:Protect jobs? (Score:4, Interesting)
Obviously we need another way to fun politicians then. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court gave businesses the rights of citizens, which in this case facilitates a de facto oligarchy.
The only solution, in my mind, would be for individuals to outnumber the businesses in their influence on Washington. There are only a few ways we have of influencing our representitives: Vote, Send money, campaign. What we need is a solution that combines those traits and organizes the real populace. I.E. a popular PAC.
What I'd like to see someone create is a website where an individual could in essence bribe their own representative by promising to donate $xx.xx if they vote correctly on a certain issue, promise that they will remember that vote (reminded by said website when election time comes), and that the general issue will be talked about/watched by that individual in the future. Imagine a House member receiving a message that they would receive $50,000 for their campaign in 3 years and that 5000 people will remember this particular vote when election times come around. Normally, they'd expect everyone to have forgotten the issue by that time, and not vote according to how the people think is best. Of course the site/PAC/whatever would have to be independent of party affiliation and open to both sides of every issue. Individuals can't be expected to watch every bill, so they'd have to be able to filter out what to watch for, and how votes are handled. Also, other PACs could use the site's infrastructure for payments or subscribing their own reviews of bills (a gargantuan effort as it is).
This would all be akin to the Ron Paul effort, where individuals showed a great resolve. On the presidential level, perhaps that effort wasn't great enough. But imagine influencing Representatives in the House or on State levels. Truly, some gains could be made there.
There may be something already like this, and it'd be difficult to manage, but it's the best idea I've had to correct many wrongs we've seen recently.
Parent
Re:Protect jobs? (Score:5, Insightful)
The truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country.... People shouldn't be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people.
Parent
The name of the new bill (Score:4, Funny)
If they'd had any class at all, they'd have named the new combined bill the "PRO-PIRATE" bill.
Why do we need this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because not everyone wants fast food doesn't give the fast foot industry the right to in a way punish previously legal activities for the goal of getting more people to eat fast food. In any other industry, a bill like this would be laughed at even by the idiots that are in our congress, but it seems that any trade group with the word America is enough to throw both republicans and democrats into passing a bill. Idiots.
Re:Why do we need this? (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Why do we need this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Why do we need this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Who's passing a bill? They introduce it, it gets shot down. Repeat. The other two didn't pass, did they? Everybody's happy. [...] Everyone wins!
The dangerous thing about that cycle is that one day the sponsors of this type of legislation will attach it to *must pass* spending or military bill and we're fucked.
Parent
Re:Why do we need this? (Score:5, Informative)
From TFA:
Intellectual property legislation introduced in the Senate on Thursday would combine elements of two controversial IP enforcement bills: The PRO-IP Act, which passed the House by a wide margin in May, and the PIRATE Act, which has won Senate approval several times since its first introduction in 2004.
In fact it was the first sentence.
The Senators are trying to tie their PIRATE legislation to the already popular PRO-IP legislation that passed the house.
Parent
In any other industry... they'd blame the problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
for auto manufacturers, the problem is nafta, not poor quality domestic vehicles.
for food prices, the problem is biofuel, not subsidized farming.
for power generation (and shortfalls), the problem is canada and mexico, not insufficient production.
for job loss, the problem is immigration, not high wages.
for the recession? the problem is terrorism!!!, not the trillions of dollars borrowed and spent on the war, subprime mortgages, and the bush administration's economic policies...
And for piracy? the problem is canada, china, and piracy
I think that if there wasn't so much high priced garbage, people would start paying for their movies and music again. I'm 100% against paying for something (like a cd), finding out it is crap, and being stuck with something I don't want... almost every other industry, I can return unwanted goods. When music/movies are like that, I'll stop pirating.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly. I just bought Bioshock and the thing keeps crashing on my computer. I should have pirated it first, but I was trying to be honest and had waited for it to hit an acceptable price point (which it did on steam this weekend). Now I'm being punished for being honest. At least when I get viruses from pirating shit, I know what I'm getting in to.
Now I'm stuck with a couple of gigs of worthless data on my hard drive that I feel like I should keep around in case they patch it. And I'm convinced more than e
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Why do we need this? (Score:4, Insightful)
Think that's more what they're spazzing about
Parent
Time for an RIAA tea party (Score:5, Funny)
Although I'm not sure throwing intangible goods into the harbour is going to be so effective.
Amazing... (Score:5, Informative)
Unbelievable. Really.
Re:Amazing... (Score:5, Interesting)
This bill basically gives federal prosecutors the right to bring a civil suit against infringers on behalf of the copyright owner
The definition of a civil lawsuit includes the idea that the victim brings the lawsuit on their own behalf and pays their own legal fees.
If Federal Prosecutors are going to be bringing these lawsuits on the victim's behalf, maybe we should change the standard of proof from 'a preponderance' to 'beyond a reasonable doubt'.
Parent
Its unbelievable ! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Its unbelievable ! (Score:4, Interesting)
how can the ELECTED senators in your country can easily move against the wishes of the people, so blatantly, so fearlessly, so hypocritically ? unbelievable.
Because it is expensive and difficult to recall an ELECTED Senator, they generally get to do what they want for six years.
The fact that the majority of them get re-elected suggests that more often than not, whatever pork they bring home and put on their constituents' table outweighs the 'bad' votes they had to make in return.
Parent
Re:Its unbelievable ! (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Not like DHS (Score:5, Informative)
Department of Homeland Security is a "Department", which comes with a seat on the Cabinet. This looks more like the DEA with its "Drug Czar", which I believe falls into the "Agency" category. No cabinet post.
The property seizure powers also look similar, though not so much the civil litigation stuff.
they WONT listen to you. GET IT (Score:5, Insightful)
you think that by protesting, talking to them, you will have them change their mind ? or by working IN the system, you will be able to compete ? how many stuff you have failed to prevent in the last 10 years by doing that ?
they DONT CARE what you think. they get their votes by doing greasy campaigns that run by donation money from whomever has the cash, and they just do as they or their masters please. thats the gist of it.
you better draw them off, and start thinking what you can do WITHOUT them being on board, because they wont be.
basically your senators have become your enemies.
THEY DONT SERVE YOU
technical problem (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems to me that the solution to censorship is to route around it. How about if we code up some steganography tool to hide encrypted messages, and give them the back-door to a bunch of worthless garbage? (i.e. SSH over Nigerian scam mail.) Perhaps they'll notice that all the geeks are communicating with variations of Nigerian spam emails, but the only way they could stop us would be to solve the SPAM problem. Good luck legislating that away.
Bipartisanship's Not when it is cracked up to be (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems to me that the only thing worse than the incessant squabbling between Democrats and Republicans is when they arrive at a consensus on a piece of "important" legislation.
People who are old like me and remember the famous battles between Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan remember when Republicans really were conservative and Democrats really were liberal. Now we just have two parties of triangulating whores selling out to try and grab the middle and flipping sides on every issue at the earliest possible opportunity.
The solution is simple! (Score:4, Interesting)
If everyone would quite buying the RIAA music, quite pirating it even. Quit buying the damn DVD's, quite going to see the movies, quit pirating movies. Show a complete and total drop I'm talking FLATLINE of sales and use for music and movies by the MAFIAA. What will be their argument be for their lost salse then? They would lose money to BUY politicians and would have to go out of business at some point. I hear you saying "boycotts just don't work." Why don't they? Because people have to have the latest RIAA pushed band's CD, they have to go see the lateset greatest MPAA pushed movie. "Hey when is American Idol on?". I haven't bought an RIAA labeld CD in 10 years I gave the RIAA my middle finger a long time ago. Instead of watching a movie I just read a book or play a video game. F@ck the MPAA too! America your deserving all the crap that is comming down on you - because your too damn lazy to do a damn thng about it. But, some of us still give a crap!
Me I wrote my senators and told them they should not vote for this crap. If they do it will show me that they have been bought off by the RIAA/MPAA and that I'll be informing as many of their "constiuants" as I can about their pro-corporate, anti-citizen votes.
Re:The solution is simple! (Score:5, Insightful)
"If everyone would quite buying the RIAA music, quite pirating it even. Quit buying the damn DVD's, quite going to see the movies, quit pirating movies. ..."
[Newsflash!]
Chairman Mao got it wrong. Religion is no longer the opiate of the masses, "entertainment" is, and like any other opiate it's addictive and addling.
So don't hold out any hope that sheeple will "see the light" and cease ingesting shite music, gawdaful movies, or infotainment any time soon.
Parent
Both republican & democrats are against the pe (Score:5, Interesting)
The republican party is prioritizing business interests over consumers any time the have a chance.
And the democrats are all cozy and in bed with the Hollywood elite.
Expect RIAA, Viacom, Hollywood and all other companiers with IP content to consistently get everything they want from Wahington. As a consumer, dont even try to get your hopes up. You will continue to get screwed.
Just as a reminder: After entertainment became a big business with lobbyists around 1920, *no* new copyrighted work have expired. Every 10 years or so, it has been extended by at least 10 years, and is now about two lifetimes.
Why not just say it... (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean that's what they really want here. At least if they came out openly and said it we'd know where we stand.
And the worst part is that it's unlikely to change until the majority of couch potato people are affected by it.
Which if the-powers-that-be are as clever as they have appeared to be so far will never happen. The last thing they want is people actually _looking_ at what they are doing - especially Joe Public - so they'll do anything to keep them fat and happy.
Re:kill (Score:5, Insightful)
i wonder when will people start killing these american senators who are doing things that people dont want. in democracy thats treason.
As the great Votaire put it:
"An ideal form of government is democracy, tempered with assassination."
Clever guy.
Parent
Re:kill (Score:5, Insightful)
No-one in their right mind would elect him to public office.
Fantastically gifted coder he may be, a founder of open source he most certainly is, but another thing he is, is a zealot. That type of person rarely does well in a job where compromise is the order of the day.
Not that its a bad thing he's so single minded. Open source wouldn't have its most important tool chain were it not for him, and the philosophy would have got nowhere but for his bull headedness on the issue.
That said, I'd never vote to put him in public office, never in a million gazillion years.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
4. No relief from foreclosure for your homes and mine, but only to Countrywide and Fannie Mae.
You know, if people wouldn't take out loans they can't afford, we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, if people wouldn't take out loans they can't afford, we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.
You know, that's something you hear ALL OVER the place, and yet an enormous number of people had acted in this way which is so spat-upon by most of the smarty-smart forums I frequent. The thing is, though, that if there is such a large amount of similar sentiment or action, there is probably something worth examining there. I would say it has something to do with incredibly smart (well, that's debatable. let's say "good with words") people who write insanely convoluted contracts that everybody and their cou